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PC gamers: On average, how much do you spend a year in hardware? Consoles > PC?

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Ethelwulf

Member
Usually, threads about hardware end up in discussions about why consoles or PC's are better for gaming. For me, I've always preferred consoles, honestly because tradition. I like booting up my PS4 (as I did with my original PS and other Nintendo consoles) to see something different than my desktop space, which I use daily for work. No icons and no "upgrade your X program". Anyway, as it looks that consoles are moving towards faster iterations, I was wondering what is the average amount of money PC gamers spend. To me this was, until now at least, a clear advantage compared to PC. I spent 500 dlls on my PS3 and that was it for about 6 years. Same goes for PS4.

So tell me PC-Gaf, how much money do you spend on average a year on hardware? I always hear that you can build a PC with similar specs to PS4 for about the same price, but my intuition tells me that this is just the start of an obsessive behavior to upgrade and upgrade and upgrade...
 
I upgraded to a 970 last year, the first since buying a 670 in 2012 IIRC. It was ~$300 and before that the 670 was under $200 used. Selling your old cards upon getting new ones helps.

CPUs don't need to be upgraded often so really it's more like buying a new card every 2 or 3 years if you've got the money for it. If not it's not the end of the world.
 
Bought my new PC in 2009 for about $600.
Since then, I upgraded my GPU in 2014 for $140.
CPU in 2015 for $120.
Had to buy a new motherboard for $100.
Added 8gb DDR3 to replace the DDR2 2gb for around $80.

So overall, I spent:
~$1000 for my pc hardware .
Before the upgrades, it was easily better than PS3/360.
Now, it is about the same level as a PS4/BONE (So bad).

So that turns out to be yearly ~$150.
As a console gamer, half of that yearly cost is just going for Xbox Live/PSN subscription ;)
 
About 1400 bucks every 3~4 years.
More or less the equivalent of a new console every year. But for me its totally worth it, the amount of time that I spend in the pc is uncomparable with the console and I still can run games on high quality, maybe not the best quality at the last year but still looks amazing.
 
I can't say per year but I upgrade my graphics card every 2-3 years maybe. But it depends how high end I go. If I go very high end, it's probably 3 years, maybe 2. So it can cost me for a graphics card anywhere around £300-500 every 2 or 3 years. For talking's sake let's say 2 years. So divide that in two and let's say it's the £500 for the high end and you get £250 per year.
CPU lasts a lot longer (as do motherboard and main memory, storage, case and so on).

My last motherboard, CPU, memory, storage and so on lasted me since about 2009 and I upgraded almost all of that around August last year.

Oh and I guess it should be mentioned I use a 1440p 144hz display and usually aim for higher settings.
 
My PC will be 7 years old this winter ($600), and the last time I upgraded my hardware was 3 years ago for the $150 7870 GE.

It's still running The Division at 45 fps average on high settings.

So anyway, in average it's about $130 in the span of 7 years, I guess?
 
Built my PC for around 900€ in summer 2013, haven't upgraded since then. Can play most games from the last generation at 1440p/60fps on Ultra and current games usually 1080p/30fps with a bit better settings than the PS4/XO. Panning to upgrade by summer 2017.
 
I've spent about £1500 total on my PC so far (including upgrading a 770 to a 970) that I built ~4 years ago, so running average is £375 I guess. I built a PC about 9 years ago that I didn't upgrade once for £700, so that one was about £140.
 
I built my PC 5 years ago for about 1000.

Since then I only replaced 2 things and added one.

I replaced the stock cooler which was like 40 USD. Then replaced a broken fan for 8 USD.

Added another SSD for 90 USD.


So since five years to today I only spent 138 USD on hardware.
 
I'd have to break it out over three to four year periods. I tend to upgrade my PC every three or four years at the tune of $400 dollars.
 
Nothing technically.

However, I used to save the money from what used to be my Xbox Live subscription. That money was put away for PC upgrades. Every 2 to 3 years I'd upgrade my system (completely out of my own choice) changing one or several components, selling the previous ones online.

It cost less than the Xbox Live subscription (£39.99) per year from 2007 to 2012, at which point I sold the PC to help with medical expenses and sticking with a laptop. From current pricing, the exact same is still doable today. It's just the initial investment that is expensive.

Edit - The upgrades from 2007 to 2012 that I can remember:

Graphics cards - 8800gt > gtx260 > gtx460
Ram - 2gb > 4gb > 8gb
Processor - AMD phenom quad > Intel Ivy bridge something (can't remember)
Mobo - changed from a gigabyte AM2 socket > intel LGA socket
Wireless dongle
 
texhnolyze said:
My PC will be 7 years old this winter ($600), and the last time I upgraded my hardware was 3 years ago for the $150 7870 GE.

It's still running The Division at 45 fps average on high settings.
Click to expand...

Word.

Last thing I bought was a 970... Most of my games run at 60 fps now. Otherwise I've had the same PC for 6 years.

Sold my old card too, so basically cost ~160.
 
PC is 7 years old
Swapped Quad Core CPU for a Hexacore for 80euro 18 months ago.
Bought 32Gig ram for 160euro( but have to sell my old ram )
GPU's since i got it Nvidia 260->AMD 5850->2x AMD 6970->780Ti->980Ti
Not including SSD's & Harddrives as you can do that with consoles and most of my Harddrives are just for media storage. Not including, monitors/VR headsets either for obvious reasons.

Probably ~220euro per year( selling off old stuff )

90% of that is gpu's as i was using 3x22" screens and last year moved to 34" 21:9 Ultra wide and this type of setup requires the latest and greatest gpu's to run on ultra @ 60FPS( or close enough to ). Also been doing VR since Oculus DK1 so that required the best single card gpu available( hence move from midrange to Ti cards )
 
Console owners spend less on hardware, more on games on a per-game basis. Opposite for PC. More on hardware less per-game. There are so many games on Steam at ridiculous prices. Spending more to build your gaming PC is actually a good investment thanks to online services like Steam and others.
 
Built my current PC in January last year, haven't added anything to it since and I do not intend to upgrade it at all this year. It seems up to spec enough to run VR and any game I've thrown at it so far.

I might even skip next year unless some totally killer app comes out that bucks the trend and pushes well past what console graphics are capable of.

My pc upgrade philosophy has always been to wait at least every second GFX card series update, then review, especially now that processors are able to stand the test of time more and more these days.

Current specs:

Graphics: Nvidia Geforce GTX 970 (3Gig version)
Ram: 16 Gig DDR3-1600
Processor: Core i5-4670k at stock 3.4GHz up to 3.8GHz
Storage: 256GB SSD + 4TB HDD

I might overclock the processor over time but right now I don't see the need.
 
Ethelwulf said:
Anyway, as it looks that consoles are moving towards faster iterations, I was wondering what is the average amount of money PC gamers spend. To me this was, until now at least, a clear advantage compared to PC.
Click to expand...

I did the math and in my case, I spend about the same, but the difference being I get much better hardware and more games if I spend my money on PC.

My case was like this: In addition to buying console hardware I found that I spent roughly 1000DKK (about $150) every month on games. What I'm doing instead these days is spend $100 on PC games and put aside $50 towards hardware every month. That means I have $2400 every fourth year to buy a new system, which gives me a system that's always a good deal ahead of consoles and the remaining monthly $100 provide me with more games on PC than the 150$ did on consoles. Significantly so, since console games are very expensive in Denmark where I live.

So I get more, but spend the same.
 
If I am not suddenly crazy, I upgrade once every 3 to 5 years. GPU usually every 3, CPU usually every 5.

But this is because I prefer things like the highest game settings and 120hz gaming. If you are fine with 30hz and console settings you do not need to take the upgrade path I take.

I only originally upgraded to a Core i7 930 in 2010 because I wanted a flat 60 fps in BFBC2 and Dawn of War II at the highest settings. If I were fine with 30, this would not be a problem. Heck, I bet an oc'd Q6600 can still manage 30fps in modern console games.
 
I built my PC in January 2013 for £750. So far I have spent £40 on some silent green LED fans for the case.

I currently only game in 1080p and the games I am playing are running at 60fps + so I see no need for any upgrades until 2018 really, may hang on until 2019 and just do a whole new build.
 
Nzyme32 said:
Nothing technically.

However, I used to save the money from what used to be my Xbox Live subscription. That money was put away for PC upgrades.
Click to expand...

That's a good idea for people changing from console to PC.
Get a jar or piggy bank and physically put the money you'd spend on PSN/XBL into that. Put money you save from cheaper games too and use that to upgrade a PC part when you need it.

One thing though about console is that you can rent games or buy second hand. But Steam also lets you share games I think, so there's that too.
 
This year I've spent nothing at all on upgrades so far. I build a new PC roughly every four years with whatever $1000 can buy me. I upgrade the GPU every two years or so. I bought my first 144 Hz monitor last year for about $350, the first new monitor I've had in eight years. So on average that's probably around $500 per year on hardware.

This setup should last me at least another year (if I don't cave and upgrade from a 970 when Pascal comes out), but it's undoubtedly more than I've spent on console hardware in the last year.

That being said, I've only bought two console games in the past year (Splatoon and Pokken), so I really don't have any reason to buy additional console hardware for the time being.
 
Dictator93 said:
If I were not crazy, I upgrade once every 3 to 5 years. GPU usually every 3, CPU usually every 5.

But this is because I prefer things like the highest game settings and 120hz gaming. If you are fine with 30hz and console settings you do not need to take the upgrade path I take.
Click to expand...

Not trying to derail, but you do remember what year it is right? >.<
 
About 800 dollars every four years, so 200 dollars a year. Pretty cheap. Especially since here in Poland PC games usually cost 20-30 dollars less than console ones and since I buy up to 20 boxed games a year it easily makes PC gaming a lot cheaper option.
 
Build my new PC athe the begin of last year for 1.3k

I upgrade every 4 years more or less, just to be sure to get 60fps on everything i play at High/Ultra
 
Sarcasm said:
Not trying to derail, but you do remember what year it is right? >.<
Click to expand...

2016, maybe?

haha

Perhaps my comment did not get across so well, but I was trying to point out how my desire for high settings and high framerates makes my upgrading more expensive. Then I side referenced that most console games run a 30fps usually and termed it "30hz".
 
Sarcasm said:
Not trying to derail, but you do remember what year it is right? >.<
Click to expand...

I've read discussions on things like Digital Foundry for example where a console game is 30 FPS and people saying they're fine with console settings and 30 FPS.
I know it's getting outdated now though even in consoles but I guess some people might be fine with it. I have a feeling most saying that aren't being honest though.
 
Bought the innards of my computer including the immortal 2500K for about AU$650

Since then I bought an SSD, another case because I got bored of my old one and a 970 last year. I don't think I'd attribute much of the build being gaming oriented outside of the GPU and I suppose 2500K but with the type of performance it offered it would have been foolish to go for something cheaper.

Maybe it'd average out to around $120-ish a year? It's a strange figure to come up with especially with resales
 
I spend a lot, and I don't really have a ballpark figure. In general I buy a major piece of hardware at least every 6 months, but usually more often.

I have friends that spend practically zero after initial hardware purchase as well, even though they game on their computers as much or more than me. Basically it comes down to level of interest and expendable income.
 
Less than I spend on XBL or PSN. My PC is...6? years old now. Maybe less. It's BARELY less powerful than a PS4, I can run all current gen games just fine on it. I could throw 300 bucks at it and be totally fine, so...yeah, it is cheaper. It's much easier to swallow for most folks too because you can upgrade piecemeal most of the time. My video card isn't great but it's good enough, my processor is an i7-2600 so it's getting on in years, but it's still perfectly fine for non-oculus level stuff. The way I look at it:
I've spent system cost + controller + XBL for a few years for my Xbox at this point, for that exact same price point I could've easily replaced at least my video card, probably my processor as well, and been more powerful than either console by quite a bit. and I could do it half at a time if I felt like it.

Throw in the benefit that it's always backwards compatible (within reason), so all my old shit looks better any time I upgrade, I don't need new accessories all the time, and it's making OTHER aspects of my life better (if you use the computer a lot for anything besides gaming on the side, that is). I love consoles, I still buy them, but I think it's definitely delusional for anyone to sleep on a quality PC because of reasons like cost. If someone wants to choose a console it should be because they REALLY like consoles, not because of any misconception about how challenging to use or expensive PC gaming is.
 
At least £500 per year, but I do it on finance, so it's like a £50 p/m "subscription" to always have top-tier PC gaming hardware.
 
I had i5-750 computer for 6 years and just last year decided to go with the high end i7-6700K, I'm expecting this to last at least 6 years.
Will be buying Pascal if I can't run DS3 all maxed 1440p60, otherwise no reason to replace my GTX 780.
 
I generally upgrade every 3/4 years.Tends to be processor and/or graphics card depends what's out and when.Cost wise about £600-£700 over those years.
 
I've been living on the cutting edge of VR for the past three years, so thousands on hardware. 99% of my games are also bought on PC, but those tend to be cheaper. I usually get most of my games for around $10-$20, although I buy several each year.

I have a friend who is primarily a PC gamer too. He is a bit more reasonable with his money. Every 2 or so years he'll drop $200 or so on some piece of hardware to upgrade in increments. He has some sort of AMD FX CPU and an AMD HD 7970 ghz edition and 16 gb of ram and a SSD for his OS. He spends maybe a few hundred each years in games, usually during the steal sales.
 
Ethelwulf said:
Usually, threads about hardware end up in discussions about why consoles or PC's are better for gaming. For me, I've always preferred consoles, honestly because tradition. I like booting up my PS4 (as I did with my original PS and other Nintendo consoles) to see something different than my desktop space, which I use daily for work. No icons and no "upgrade your X program". Anyway, as it looks that consoles are moving towards faster iterations, I was wondering what is the average amount of money PC gamers spend. To me this was, until now at least, a clear advantage compared to PC. I spent 500 dlls on my PS3 and that was it for about 6 years. Same goes for PS4.

So tell me PC-Gaf, how much money do you spend on average a year on hardware? I always hear that you can build a PC with similar specs to PS4 for about the same price, but my intuition tells me that this is just the start of an obsessive behavior to upgrade and upgrade and upgrade...
Click to expand...

Time has moved on. I've just made the jump and built my first PC in 9 years.
Things like Steam big picture and fast SSD OS booting will exactly give you that (bolded).
You'll have to admit to yourself first that you have no clue about PC gaming and how it has evolved in the meantime.
 
I spend about $2000 every 3 years. Thats about enough for 1 system and 2 video card upgrade cycles for me.

I have not bought a $500+ video card since 2013 though. Because I barely play PC games anymore.

Last system I built was just about making as silent a PC as possible. This was suprisingly expensive.

I've only bought an $800+ class gfx card once. And it was one of the worst purchases ever considering how quickly it became obsolete. But once I built that system I kind of lost the drive to keep chasing high end performance.
 
If I average things out, it's probably about $400 a year due. It's more now that I'm older and have more income then 5/10 years ago.
 
I used to get a ~NZD$1,000 (NZ$1.5=US$1) computer every 5/6 years when my parents paid for it. Now I'm earning my own money and got myself a NZ$2,000 PC with a NZ$600 1440p screen last year (I bought the screen >6 months before the PC though).

This year I'm planning on getting quality speakers for ~NZ$1,000 and I might replace my 970 by a 1070 (or whatever it's called) if the upgrade is noticeable &#8212; which should cost maybe NZ$200 after selling the old one.

After that though, I'm not changing anything for a few years, as there would be no need (especially on the screen/audio side of things).

I'm not earning heaps but I'm saving money wherever I can (cook my own meals etc.) to be able to afford this while still making decent savings at the same time.
 
$1200 in 2012 and ~$800 for a 980ti last year.
You don't need to spend nearly as much to play efficiently on PC, however.

I bought a Wii U, 2xPS4 and 2xXONE (I like to LAN my consoles) in the same period, so I guess I'm about even.
 
Not bought any hardware since 2013, but my GTX 780s & i7 3770k (which I bought in 2012) are still going strong.

If I had to average it out over my past few builds, though... Maybe £300 a year? But that doesn't include what I'll be able to get out of this when it's time to sell & build a new system.

It's hard to put a figure on it.
 
On average it's probably about 300 euros a year. About 750 every 4 years for a whole new build (not including a GPU) and 250 every 2 years for a new GPU. I never buy the best of the best, usually mid to high range stuff.
 
My last upgrade was from a 640 1GB to a 750ti. The 750ti cost me $100 back in October 2015. I try to get the most use out of my hardware. So it's years before I do any upgrade.
 
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